


Lost and found again out there among the paths

by TuskFM



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andromaquynh Secret Santa 2020, Andy | Andromache of Scythia Regains Immortality, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Good Quynh | Noriko, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, POV Quynh, of both Andy and Quynh here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuskFM/pseuds/TuskFM
Summary: The stars are bright, cold and unreachable, hung high in the firmament.They haven’t changed in all of her centuries gone. The names are different but the same figures look down on her, the gaze of the Ursa and the Swan’s tail, the Crane hidden under the horizon in these parts of the world.She isn’t ready to see her homelands yet, but this is enough. This is good. The Steppe hasn’t changed either, the same grass covering the earth everywhere she looks, the sun burning her skin as the winds surround her. It all feels so familiar, the sights, the animals, the long days of travel. Andromache, sitting by her side, walking by her side, sleeping by her side. Andromache, Andy, Andreas, Hadriana, Anath and so many other names forgotten by time. And still, she’s here, with her.~After reuniting, Andy and Quynh leave the family to have a trip through the Great Steppe and reconnect. They might get more out of this travel than they expect.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 16
Kudos: 55
Collections: Andromaquynh Secret Santa 2020





	Lost and found again out there among the paths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilolilyrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/gifts).



> This is my Andromaquynh Secret Santa gift for lilolilyr on tumblr, happy holidays!
> 
> This is a h/c (and man, does the hurt lead up to comfort here) and “Andy regains immortality” fic, there’s talk about Quỳnh’s time under the sea and the trauma related to it, both for her and Andy, and a small wound being described.
> 
> Title from the English translation of “Stillness” by Mats Söderlund taken from the [center for the art of translation](https://www.catranslation.org/journal-post/from-stillness/).

The stars are bright, cold and unreachable, hung high in the firmament.

They haven’t changed in all of her centuries gone. The names are different but the same figures look down on her, the gaze of the Ursa and the Swan’s tail, the Crane hidden under the horizon in these parts of the world.

She isn’t ready to see her homelands yet, but this is enough. This is good. The Steppe hasn’t changed either, the same grass covering the earth everywhere she looks, the sun burning her skin as the winds surround her. It all feels so familiar, the sights, the animals, the long days of travel. Andromache, sitting by her side, walking by her side, sleeping by her side. Andromache, Andy, Andreas, Hadriana, Anath and so many other names forgotten by time. And still, she’s here, with her.

They are not riding horses but it doesn’t matter, Quỳnh would crawl to the end of the world with Andromache. They left their jeep three days ago at the entrance of those lands and they’ve been traveling by feet since then. The pace is slow but that’s what they both need. Peace, to be able to feel the grain of time slip through their fingers, not lost in the confusion of the modern world and its obsession with going so fast nothing matters anymore.

They talk as they walk, share memories and new stories, but mostly they walk, side by side, hand brushing and glances shared in the intimacy of the wide and open Steppe. Even the wind taste familiar in these moments. Quỳnh watches a lot, at night when the sun has gone down, she watches Andromache’s profile lightened only by the fire in front of her. Shadows dances in her temples and cheekbones and her pale eyes are drawn to the flames, mirrors bright with life. Quỳnh wishes she could bridge the distance between them as easily as they used to.

~

When the salt finally ate through her bound of iron, when the ocean took mercy on her, when Quỳnh broke out of her prison the first thing she felt after the burn of air in her lungs was an indescribable fury. A mad feeling seething in her heart that she mistook as anger, resentment. But it wasn’t that at all, she now recognizes it. She felt shame, because she knew then, crawling on the rocky beach away from the cold ocean that it happened. She had been broken, after millenniums of riding the world without a care, a handful of lunatics had done it.

She feared she had become nothing but a shell of the woman she was once. An’ always said she was like a sword, sharp edges and unforgiving. She used to joke that no one but her love’s skilled hands could handle her, that it was meant to be the two of them. It felt good, to know she would always have a resting place with Andromache.

She feared she lost herself in the ocean, that despite how hard she kept her faith in Andromache, how hard she clung to life, suffering over and over through the pain of drowning, of burning water suffocating her lungs, she feared she lost it all. That Andromache wouldn’t have that sacred place for her anymore, that she had become monstrous at the eternity spend in a cage. That despite how bright of a beacon it has been, her love somehow couldn’t be enough to save her. That their love wasn’t enough.

She was mad, furious at what happened to her, but more than anything she was scared. Scared of this new world, of what it had become and what she missed. Scared that she’d never find her family, that she would never have a home with them again.

And now, in a twisted play from fate, she is scared of losing Andromache.

She is so scared, like she has never been. Before seeing that damned iron coffin, nothing frightened her, for she had Andromache. Even the coffin didn’t fill her with as much dread as the sight of those bruises on Andromache’s cheek did when she finally found her again with the spy’s contacts the drunkard gave her. She wondered, has she lost her? Has she lost part of her soul? Did she cause this cruel fate?

~

They left the family a week ago. They needed time alone they said as they were packing their bags. Quỳnh needs time alone with Andromache, to be only with her, like they had been for so long before meeting Yusuf and Nicolò. She missed them, but looking at them doesn’t hurt like it does when she watches Andromache’s face. Andy said she had to leave, to be alone for a while, away from it all. It warmed Quỳnh’s cold chest that she was included in her idea of alone, that alone without Quỳnh means not whole, not complete, _lacking_.

They took a plane and flew all the way to the Great Steppe. At least it hasn't changed since she was gone, unlike her homelands. There’s still a bitter taste when she sees what happened to her mountains and her coastlines. Andromache says it gets easier after a few years, but she’s not sure she wants this to be more bearable, to get used to it.

They’ve been playing a game lately, “what hasn’t changed” she calls it. It started a few months ago when she finally grew tired of being reminded of everything new she missed the creation of. She looked at Yusuf who had been explaining to her some new gadget she had no interest in learning about that night and challenged him to find five things in the room that she knew of. It’s been easier talking with him since then, almost like before. The rules are simple, list everything that stayed the same through the centuries she wasn’t there for. Nicolò’s uncanny words, Yusuf’s bright eyes. The stars. An’s sweet tooth. The way Quỳnh still wields blades with the same grace; she can still spar with Yusuf in their shared Viet, Greek and Persian tongues.

Her love’s face hasn’t changed yet, despite her new mortality. She still has the same piercing eyes that look like home, that calls for her to come back home, _please come back to me_ she heard Andromache cry out in her sleep.

She hides, hides it well in the day, in front of Yusuf and Nicolò and Nile. She smiles and laughs and moves the same. It’s only when they’re alone that she allows the walls to break down and for Quỳnh to see what’s going on in her head. The guilt in her eyes every time she looks at her, the way she touches her like she’s fragile, like she’s mist that would dissipate with the smallest gust of wind. She was so ready for Quỳnh to hate her when they found each other again, she doesn’t think Andromache’s really let go of this idea, that she doesn’t deserve Quỳnh, that she somehow failed by not letting her life rot by looking after an impossible task.

Quỳnh only needed one look at her pendant around Andromache’s neck, the pain etched in her eyes, the desperation in her voice for all doubt that she had been forgotten to leave her mind. The anger, the bitterness was still there, but how could she ever loathe Andromache, the other half of her soul, the one so unjustly ripped away from her?

At night, that’s when Andy confesses her fears. How scared she is too, of dying, of being gone after so long, of being without her family, without Quỳnh. Of losing that constant in her life, that she knew she would be there to see it happen, whatever was bound to happen.

She tells Quỳnh about her fear of aging, of her hands shaking, her hairs falling grey, her vision turning blurry, her feet uneasy and her mind crazy. Her fear of leaving them behind, the fear of the unknown. After all those years, the unanswered question still bears heavily on her. She wished she had answers like Nicolò and Yusuf do, like Nile does. That assurance that there’s something after for her.

She has nightmares too. When it’s not Quỳnh waking up cold and her chest squeezed by terror, it’s Andy who sweats through the sheet and mumbles names over and over. She dreams about Lykon, the hot blood on her hands. Quỳnh holds her through the night and they cry together, still bearing the grief for their lost brother. They share the burden, and that is all Quỳnh can ask for, wish for.

They share a lot of tears for the years lost to men’s madness, the one they won’t have, their mistakes and misdeeds. They share laughs too, when it’s late and the night is dark and the house quiet. Those real shards of joy that sounds like a thousand carillon, the sweet, soft laughter that heals and mends. They are rare, so, so precious. They talk about their first years together, learning to speak the same tongue, to move as one. They hold each other, close and dearly, with the desperation of a drowning man because Quỳnh refuses to let her go and Andy can’t seem to stop reaching out either, always seeking a touch.

It helps, feeling her hands in hers, her lips against hers, their body pressed together under the covers and standing hips to hips in the house, never apart, always locking eyes and sharing smiles.

~

They’ve set their camp in a nook of rocks just as the sun approached the horizon, near a small freshwater current and protected from the winds. They gathered wood together and Andromache used her metal lighter to start the fire. They unrolled their bedrolls and the thick plastic tarp and they filled their bottle with cool water, washed their hands in the stream like they so often did in time pasts.

They’re preparing their meal, Quỳnh’s cutting the few roots they have and boiling the barley and Andromache is gutting the two rabbits she killed earlier with her bow, her own labrys laid between them as the knives work. She’s wearing jeans and a woolen sweater and yet it still feels familiar, the sound of the blades and the crackling of the fire, the smell of wood and iron pot, the sight of the clear night sky, no clouds to cross the picture.

They chat idly in their own tongue as they work, no English, modern or what Quỳnh remembers, not even the so recent Italian language or the Sabir Yusuf spoke with them at first. No, it’s old, old enough that it’s forgotten by everyone, everything, papers and stones except for two being on this earth. They throw in the occasional olden Greek and Latin when they are in need of too new of a concept but it soothes Quỳnh’s heart to speak what she first learned, to build it again with Andromaque, keep its memory alive. It feels like saving a part of herself.

The comfortable silence is broken by a sudden shout from Andromache followed by a string of cuss and a number of blasphemies to at least three different cultures. Quỳnh turns her head in time to see her throw the half-skinned rabbit and the knife on the ground and clutch her hand to her chest. Her grip on her knife lessen and she wills her worries to quiet down.

“Fucking shit,” Andromache mutters under her breath and Quỳnh can see the blood flowing from the wound she inflicted on herself. She’s pressing on it but it doesn’t stop the blood from dripping down to her wrist. “Cut my hand.” She says and turns to shrug at Quỳnh, feigning carelessness. “Wasn’t paying attention.”

“You really should let me handle the knives, my love,” Quỳnh says as she sets her own knife down. Andromache has been hurt enough for her to know how to react in situations like this one, the sense of dread has quietened since the first wound she saw on her love’s body. “I would appreciate it if you could bring all your fingers to our couch tonight.” She tries to laugh; Andromache tries to smile. It still hurts too much but she knows it would somehow feel worse to not at least pretend that everything is okay. As wrong as it sounds, that hollow laugh of hers and the tight smile stretched over Andromache’s face feels like a breath of fresh air in the depth of their heavy hearts.

“We talked about this,” Andromache mutters. “I don’t want this to change anything.” This. _This_. This feels so unjust. How could the world punish them like that, taunt Andromache with eternity and take it all away just as Quỳnh finds her way back to her.

“Letting me use the knife won’t take away your skills my love. Or your honor.” She’s tiring of Andromache’s misplaced guilt, of her own heart betraying her and making her doubt. They have too few years to taint them with such futile thoughts and feelings. It’s at this instant, Andromache still holding on her hand and Quỳnh watching her hair falling in front of her eyes that she decides to push past what is outside of her control and move forward. She’ll keep the pain in her heart but she won’t let it define her, nor will she let Andromache be defined by it.

“Come,” She says and extends her arm toward her. “Give me your hand. Nile showed me how to care for wounds.” They’ll move on, gods help her they will find their path again, she swears it. Andromache holds her gaze for a moment, tilt her head, and it’s the first time since they reunited that Quỳnh gets that feeling. The one deep down that she knows, that they both know, that they are one. That they don’t need words, only a look, a touch to get it, to understand the other. Her throat lumps with relief as Andromache gives her her hand to hold. She’s holding her gaze with a peace she hadn’t see in so long, warm and confident despite the chaos surrounding them. Things will get better her guts murmur, and she believes it.

“It was time you pick up on this century’s medicine my heart, the way things are going I’ll have more scars than a crocodile has teeth before I get my first grey hair.” And this time the joke feels right. It feels like home, like the teasing and ribbing they shared so many times before a battle, on their couch, at a meal, in the busy streets, vast deserts and quiet forests. Quỳnh grins as she takes the small first aid kit in their bag and opens it in front of her, still holding Andromache’s wrist between her fingers.

“I might as well do it, seeing how determined you are at testing Nile’s and Nicolò’s knowledge of medicine. They need someone who isn’t afraid of telling you off before you run faster than modern science can follow.”

“It’s the hair,” Andromache says as if she hadn’t been intimidating kings and emperors with hair as long as a horse’s mane before Quỳnh even met her. Quỳnh smiles, the pain wavering in her heart as the warmth of feeling whole again gains her. Finally, she looks down at Andromache’s hand to judge the extent of the damage on the palm, only to have to double-take what she sees.

The blood isn’t flowing anymore and she knows that knife was sharp enough to dig deep in the flesh. The left hand, the one holding the meaty rabbit and the one victim to the blade’s enthusiasm, the one bearing the wound, doesn’t have any cut to show. Quỳnh’s breath locks as she stares at the hand, now cradled between her own.

“My love.” She says, and when she wipes the blood with her thumb, the skin appears undamaged, no cut, no scars, nothing but the smooth extend of her palm. She does it again, and a third time just to be sure. The flesh and muscles, tendons and bones underneath are unscathed, whole and perfect.

“What?” Andromache asks but keeps her eyes fixed on Quỳnh’s, a frown painting her face with worry. “Is it bad?”

“Your hand.” Quỳnh whispers. “Look at it.” There’s a moment of silence, maybe a minute, maybe an hour, Quỳnh herself isn’t sure. She just knows that she’s filling with euphoria and that Andromache’s right hand is touching the healed skin, slow strokes of wonder.

“It’s gone.” Her voice is hoarse, barely a whisper. She touches the skin, press on it, rub away the blood. It’s her hand that makes Quỳnh look up, and her eyes are filling with misty tears. “It’s gone. Quỳnh, I’ve healed.”

“Your immortality Andromache.” And the same shadow crosses Andromache’s eyes and her own mind.

“Wait.” Quỳnh lets go of her hand as she takes the knife again. They both watch as she brings the blade to the back of her forearm and slowly slices the skin, a hand long wound. It feels like one of those miracles Nicolò always talks about, the way the skin stitches itself close on its own, how the blood stop and the edges meet and the scar fades in a minute.

“It’s back, I’ve got it again.” The words are barely out of her mouth that Quỳnh wraps her arms around her neck and bring her close into an embrace, Andromache’s arms warm and heavy on her back. They’re shaking, laughing, whispering sweet nonsense into their shoulders, and Quỳnh knows tears are flowing from their eyes, she welcomes the liquid joy.

“Our love was enough then.” She can’t help but voice it out loud, needs to hear it to really understand the reality of what’s happening.

“Quỳnh?” Andromache pulls back, plunge her gaze into hers, it feels almost too much, too big.

“Our love was enough.” She feels herself laughing, nervous and bursting with relief, uncontrollable. “It is enough.” ‘ _I am enough_ ’ she can’t help but think.

“What are you talking about Quỳnh? Of course it is. Always has been enough, more than enough. It has always been everything to me.” Both of her hands come to rest on the side of her face, cradling it with great gentleness.

“I was afraid my faith in you, in us had been wavering in my prison.” She confesses, lets herself feel it, feels the depth of the hurt now that she was proven wrong, that she knows it is untrue. “That you lost this gift of immortality because of me, because of my unreliable heart.”

“Oh Quỳnh.” Her voice breaks then, as does her face. “Have you been thinking this all this time?”

“Do you think me mad? To think that you losing your immortality coinciding with me finding you again broken, mad with fury, was nothing meaningless?” Quỳnh shakes her head then, covers Andromache’s hands with hers.

“Quỳnh, what are you talking about? I never doubted you.” Pain lines Andromache’s voice, desperation. “If you see yourself broken, then what am I? We are not as we were, will never be again. But that had nothing to do with you my heart.” She kisses her with urgency as if she couldn’t use her words to express everything in her heart. Quỳnh closes her eyes and feels the wind dry lips move against her, slides her hands behind her neck and bring her even closer. They part with a pant and Andromache smiles, a genuine, guilt-free smile, small but the seed of something bigger. “Our love was never tainted, in all of our millenniums together, it survived every hardship, every terror, every obstacle. We will survive this too.”

“I knew this, somehow, but you understand better than anyone how the mind is. It’s so easy to be tricked by sorrow when you’re grieving and hurting.”

“I’ll spend this eternity given to me reminding you Quỳnh. We never understood this gift, there’s no point reading meaning where there’s none. The only thing I am sure of is the love that courses through this world, through us.” Andromache fixes her gaze on her, strong, unwavering, and oh how Quỳnh missed seeing it. “I love you like the earth loves the sun, undeterred, constant, in the depth of my being because without I am not alive.”

“Can you believe that I do not hate you then?” Quỳnh prompts and she closes her mouth into a tight line. “That what happened was never your fault? That you couldn’t find me any more than you could save Lykon? My anger is not directed at you, never was, never will be.”

“I hate that I couldn’t save you,” Andromache says with shame in her voice. “I should have been there for you. You lost so much because of me.” This isn’t a new conversation, but it’s only today that Quỳnh realizes what she needs to hear, not a logical argument nor a dismissal of her feelings.

“I forgive you,” She says, and this time it’s Andromache who let go of a tight laugh, wet with tears. “I forgive you, Andromache, of any fault you gave yourself, I absolve any wrong you think you’ve done. You’ve saved me once in that desert where our path crossed for the first time, you saved me again in this century. I do not accuse you of anything, and neither will you. You are free of this burden.”

“Thank you.” Andromache whisper, tears in her eyes. “Thank you, my love.” Healing won’t be easy, but this is a start. They can forgive each other, forgive themselves, move on from there with a clear slate and shoulders relieved from their heavy loads of sorrow. They can do anything; they are not strained by time or Death anymore.

“We have time.” Quỳnh realizes, just as Andromache swipes her thumb along her jaw. “You will live, and we have time.” She pushes back Andromache’s hair, and she allows herself to feel the relief too. “You will live Andromache, spend time with the family, with Nile, Yusuf and Nicolò. You will see Sébastien again.”

“I don’t have to go yet.” She says, and the smile that carves itself on her face is radiant, shining with newfound light. “I don’t have to go.” Her hand slide at the back of her neck and slowly she kisses her, once, light and barely there, she rests her nose on her cheek “I am only grateful to have the gift back, to have the opportunity to spend it for as long as I’ll have it with you, together.”

“Just the two of us,” Quỳnh says through another laugh, press her forehead against Andromache’s, feel the warm skin and her hands over her shoulders. Let herself feels it all.

“Until the end.”

Quỳnh breathes the same air as Andromache, in, out, feel the same pulse as hers under her fingers, beating as one, like it always had. Like it was always meant to be.

~

The stars are bright, old and eternal, hung high in the firmament.

The fire is slowly dying, the last flames licking the wood and giving their valiant effort to burn for a bit longer. The moon lights their step, pale blue and cold on their warm skin. They are dancing together, waltzing under the milky way, hand pressed against hand, feet mirroring feet, circling each other as they did for the very first time ages ago, when the stars had different faces, when Andromache was still called a goddess’s name and Quỳnh’s was a whisper amongst her people’s legend.

Their gaze locked, lost in each other’s eyes, their nose touching and sharing the same breath, it feels like a dream.

“Do you remember my love,” Quỳnh pants as she shifts on her feet and pushes her hand against An’s, raising it high in the sky. “That night in _Bābilim_?” She grins and twists her hips just so as to press Andromache closer to her chest. She wishes she could crawl into her ribcage, be as close as possible, seize her heart from the inside and never let go again. She settles on sliding a leg between hers and let herself get lost in her scent, drunk from it like a young boy is from his first sip of ale.

“If I remember,” Andromache whispers in her ear. “You looked like wildfire. The most beautiful creature I had ever seen.” There had been music Quỳnh remembers, and wine flowing like rivers from the amphoras. She danced through the night, and Andromache’s gaze upon her was heavy and burning, she felt stripped from everything, baring her soul for the first time in her life. That’s the night their love became more than allyship, more than friend and necessity. That’s when it shifted to become more, to become everything.

“Do you remember what I said?” Andromache asks her, lays her left hand to her chest and she does the same, feel her heartbeat strong under her palm despite their clothing.

“ _More please!_ ” Quỳnh moans like An’s does and pushes away with her hand only to crash together with the next steps. Andromache grins and indulges her change of rhythm. They had a room that night, a soft bed of feathers and fine silks like they had seldom seen with their own eyes.

“After that. On the balcony.” And Quỳnh remembers fondly that moment. Andromache had draped herself over her back, holding onto each other and murmuring in the quiet night. The moon had been full then too, albeit the desert looked warmer than the Steppe they are dancing in today. They circle each other again, Quỳnh savors the moment with her entire being.

“ _You will be my deathbed._ ” She meant it as a joke after the night filled with passion, but they both knew the deeper meaning. It hanged unsaid in the air between them. “Remember what I said?”

“ _And you mine._ ” Andromache presses her nose close to her cheek, her breath warm on her skin. They are silent after that, don’t need words anymore, not when they have each other.

They finish their dance when the last of the fire blow away in the night. They press their foreheads together and stand in the middle of the Steppe, alone, together. Whole and one. For the first time in over a year, in over five centuries, her heart finally feels at peace. She’s home, in the embrace of Andromache’s arms, of Andy’s, in the certainty that they won against fate, that they are truly immortal. That they’ll live together again.

The stars are bright and Andromache’s eyes are even brighter, Quỳnh is sure of that.

**Author's Note:**

> All thanks to [@thirst-teenth](https://thirst-teenth.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for organizing this event, it was amazing to participate.
> 
> I’m [@salzundhonig](https://salzundhonig.tumblr.com/) there, come say hi.


End file.
